


but it’s to you i want to say this nothing

by gsparkle



Series: fast forward [6]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Being an Idiot on the Phone, M/M, Not Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) Compliant, Voicemail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/pseuds/gsparkle
Summary: Today is Tuesday and Steve is going to walk into Scott's bakery andsaysomething. Today is Tuesday and he’s going to stop beating around the bush. Today is Tuesday--Today is Tuesday and instead of Scott Lang at the counter, there’s a man with the size and personality of an Asgardian mountain troll glowering behind the register.
Relationships: Scott Lang/Steve Rogers
Series: fast forward [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1034712
Comments: 15
Kudos: 75





	but it’s to you i want to say this nothing

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: Congratulations! One of your dreams has finally come true. Let me give you a big hug and wow, you’re warm…
> 
> title: "With reference to love letters, Roland Barthes summarized their key message as being: 'I've got nothing to say to you, but it's to you I want to say this nothing.'"
> 
> if you haven't read the previous work, all you need to know is that after Civil War, Scott gets a job at a bakery and Steve hangs around the Bay Area to keep an eye on him.

Once, tipsy at 3 AM, Natasha told him that her most embarrassing secret was the time she got trashed and drunk dialed an ex-boyfriend thirty times in a row. “ _Thirty_ times?” Steve had asked, aghast. “To say _what_?” And Natasha had looked at him, peered too-seriously over her vodka, quirked the _I know something you don’t_ corner of her mouth. “What does anyone want to say to the person they love?” she’d asked in reply, and Steve hadn’t known what to say.

Later, he’d turned her words over in his head, trying to find the catch in the puzzle box. What had he wanted to say to Bucky, that night at the Stark Expo? _I don’t want you to go without me_ and _Yours is the only hand that I’ve wanted to hold_ and _You’re taking my heart with you_ , but he’d said _all the stupid_ instead of _my heart_ and there wasn’t really a difference. 

And what, as the Valkyrie and his heart both plummeted, had he wanted to say to Peggy, really? _I wish things were different_ and _I loved you even before you socked Gilmore Hodge_ and _I want to be the only dance partner you ever have ever again_. Nice things, good things. Things held tight in the fist of his soul, kept safe in the clutch of ghostly fingers.

But these are not, he suspects, the types of things Natasha meant; these are not words that would drive him to dial over and over and _over_ again, that belong strung out and messy on an answering machine. _Maybe I don’t have that kind of love in me_ , he thinks, putting the puzzle box in the bottom drawer of his brain and shutting it tight. _Maybe that’s just not for me._

\---

It’s Tuesday, and that means dropping by the tiny bakery where Scott works, ostensibly for a safety check-in but actually to nearly get caught watching the way the light plays Scott’s long eyelashes into fringed shadows across his cheeks. Sometimes it’s busy and Steve takes up post at the single cafe table, going through five bagel knots and three cups of coffee and trying not to sketch the same pale green eyes over and over. Sometimes it’s quiet and Scott takes his break and they wander around the neighborhood, knuckles brushing as they don’t quite manage to hold hands.

 _Today will be different,_ Steve decides, hand on the curved handle of the bakery door. Today is Tuesday and he’s going to stop dancing this particular jitterbug. Today is Tuesday and he’s going to walk Scott over to that park on the hill, over to that bench under the cork oak tree, and say--say _something_ , because that wrought iron park bench is the only place where Steve can ever figure out what the hell to say. Today is Tuesday and--

Today is Tuesday and instead of Scott Lang at the counter, there’s a man with the size and personality of an Asgardian mountain troll glowering behind the register. “Lang called out today,” he grunts when Steve asks. “Why?”

“No reason,” Steve says; buys three bagel knots, methodically eats through them as he walks from the bakery to Hank Pym’s street, tries very hard not to feel like he’s about to ask if Scott can come out and play. He’s a grown-ass man, he’s an Avenger, he’s _punched Adolf Hitler like eighty times_ \--

He’s also able to tell from the end of the block that Scott’s car isn’t home. _Okay._ Okay. He can walk to the door, anyway; he can pull the pineapple-shaped knocker and wait without fidgeting his hands. He can study the door, solid wood like they don’t make anymore, whorls of woodgrain stained deep brown and trimmed in precise cream and tangerine paint. He can remind himself that there’s nothing to worry about, that international security crises do not occur in the sleepy suburbs of San Francisco, that things of that ilk belong firmly in the life he’s left behind.

And, when nobody answers the door of Hank Pym’s sturdy, well-made, apparently-empty house, he can walk back to the sidewalk and call Scott’s number and listen to the dial tone pulse and pulse. _Scott’s phone!_ the voicemail recording blurts, his specific form of awkward confidence bursting from the speaker. _Leave a message, and I’ll probably call back!_

“Hi,” Steve says when prompted by the beep. “I stopped by the bakery, but you weren’t there, so--” _So what?_ He stares at Hank Pym’s pineapple-shaped door knocker in futile hopes of an answer. “So I called,” he finishes lamely. “That’s it. Bye.”

He sticks his phone in his pocket, satisfied that he's left a completely normal message. _That’s it. Bye._ Normal. Respectable, even. Perfectly casual!

Perhaps… _too_ casual? He did, after all, march into that bakery with the intent to confess, or whatever verb best applies to finally pull all of his feelings from the oven of his heart and serve them, soft and warm, on a platter. _That's it_ maybe doesn't quite encompass the situation. He pulls out his phone again, waits through the dial tone. "Hey! Me again. Me being Steve. Rogers. Steve Rogers, you know, uh, Captain America? I was calling back to say--" It's about here that he realizes that he's steered himself into the weeds. "Bye," he panics, and hangs up.

Okay. _Okay._ That could have gone better. There must be a balance between these two messages, between the abrupt and the verbose. “Hey, it’s Steve,” he tries again. “Ignore the last two messages--I ate too many bagel knots and the sugar went to my head.” _A joke! You’re crushing it!_ “Anyway, really missed seeing you at the bakery, so I thought I’d call to say hi. Call me back.”

A _perfect_ message. Steve congratulates himself, nodding somehow to the pineapple door knocker as if it has helped him on this journey, and starts back down the sidewalk. It’s only when he’s made it about fifty yards that he begins to question whether or not he really wants Scott to call him back. For one thing, requesting a return call implies that Steve actually has something important to relay--which he does, if confessions are counted as important, but should that really happen over the phone? And this question leads into the second thing, which is that Steve is historically, categorically bad at talking on the phone. In the throes of puberty, he’d asked Martha Wells to meet him for a soda after school, but his voice had cracked and the operator listening in had tittered, just audible under the sound of Martha turning him down. Now, phones are better; decidedly, Steve is not.

“Actually,” he tells Scott’s voicemail, “Don’t call me back.” But maybe Scott _likes_ to talk on the phone? “Un--unless you want to, in which case, uh, _do_ call back!” Now he’s been too bossy. “Uh, or do whatever you want! No pressure!”

Steve hangs up and cringes so hard into the nearest tree that the boughs shake with it. Why, generally, had the telephone been invented? A terrible idea, he thinks. Phone conversations should be reserved for emergencies only; everything else should be face to face, or written, preferably, so that Steve has ample time to craft the right response without getting _um_ s and _uh_ s in the mix of things.

A snag: _emergencies only_. "Scott, are you in trouble?" Steve demands this time the voicemail clicks over. "I assumed you couldn't get into much trouble in San Francisco, but then again, it's been almost an hour since I first called you, and you haven't answered, so--just call me back and I can help."

Now he's anxious, pacing the streets of suburban San Francisco without seeing them. They call him the star-spangled man with a plan, but Steve's always been more impulsive than that, reckless even before he had the body to back up the checks his mouth cashed. He itches with his inability to solve this problem, with a tangled weave of concern and the need to confess lying close beneath his skin. What can he do? What _should_ he do? 

After walking another twenty minutes of laps around the same block, it comes to him that perhaps the answer to both of these questions is the same: _nothing_ . "Okay, so maybe you don't want my help," Steve admits to the voicemail. "I know I can be, uh, pushy." _There's an understatement_. "And you're a perfectly competent superhero, so I'll assume you have the situation handled." He pauses, but simply cannot help but add, "but if you _are_ in danger and can't talk, just call back and say the word _avocado_."

It's not exhaustion that causes him to drop into the next park bench he passes, but the shade of the cork tree hanging over it. _If Scott were here_ , he thinks, wishes. Scott knows how to lighten things, how to laugh without feeling guilty and how to smile without looking sad. But this isn't the right tree, _their_ tree: the leaves cast the wrong shadows, the bench not quite cool enough. In a different timeline, one where Scott was at work, they'd be _there_ , at the right tree on the right bench, and Steve would be saying the right words to make Scott smile and laugh and maybe, _maybe_ , kiss him back.

And even on this not-right bench under this not-right tree, even without Scott next to him in the shade, the Tuesday Steve planned makes itself happen, anyway. “I just really _like_ you,” he blurts into the voicemail. “And I feel like people today don’t say that very much, anymore. But I do! Like, I enjoy being around you, and I think you have a _great_ smile. Spending all my time with superheroes, you know, they’re just--they don’t smile like you do, sometimes, like they mean it. You always mean it. And I like that you see more to me than just the shield. I mean, the shield is important, but it’s not _all_ of me, you know? Just like I know Ant-Man isn’t all of you! You’re a great dad, a really good friend, you make dangerously good brownies now--no seriously, it’s a problem. Anyway, if we were sitting on our bench right now, I’d be saying this to your face, and then maybe kissing you? If you wanted, I mean. If not--like, that’s also fine. Really! I mean it, I--”

 _I’m sorry,_ the voicemail interrupts, robotically plaintive. _Your voice message is too long. Please try again_. “Fuck,” Steve says, loud enough that the woman on the next bench over gathers her stuff and leaves, casting him a suspicious glance. It seems a uniquely Steve Rogers experience, to pour out his Tuesday heart the way he’s never been able to, only to be thwarted by modern technology, by something so paltry as _voicemail storage_. But the words are still out there, a bunch of letter balloons released into the sky, no longer crashing around his ribcage like trapped birds. 

So because that feels good, what happens is this: Steve gets off the wrong bench under the wrong tree and heads down the street in no particular direction. He sees a dog wearing a bowtie and calls Scott with a description. He calls again about the nachos he eats for lunch, and the kid who tries to pick his pocket, and the gap-toothed girls selling Ant-man drawings outside a bookstore for 25 cents a piece. Flowers and checker games and mailbox libraries get the same treatment. When he stumbles into a farmers market--forget about it, that’s three calls alone. 

Steve pours his day into Scott’s voicemail, one message at a time, until: _The voicemail box of SCOTT LANG_ _is full. Please try your call again later_. It’s annoying, first of all, that it’s the future and they still haven’t figured out how to solve this problem. He’d text Tony to complain, if they were still friends, but he can’t dwell on that fact in the face of the truth: he’s overrun Scott’s voicemail. He’s guilty, as Natasha often says, of doing the most. He can’t even leave a message to apologize, and a text feels, now, like overkill.

And while he glares at his phone for not stopping him, somehow, it begins to ring. SCOTT, the screen flashes, and Steve barely doesn’t drop it. “Hello?” he says, trying for _effortless nonchalance_ and landing somewhere around _apprehensive dread_.

“Hey, quick question.” Scott’s real voice, Steve now knows with hideously embarrassing detail, is so much better than the flat voicemail version. “Is San Francisco being attacked? Like, I see you left me fifty-three voicemails--”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Steve almost shouts, “Don’t listen to them! Just, uh--” He’d like to provide more information here, perhaps a casual and perfectly reasonable explanation for why any sensible human being would leave so many messages. “Uh. I--um--”

“Look,” says Scott, kindness sliding across the line. “I’m in the middle of this thing, but meet me in, say, fifteen minutes?”

“Got it,” Steve promises, jotting down the address and hanging up. Fifteen minutes is more than enough time to come up with an answer to the _why_ skating under each of Scott’s words. In fifteen minutes, Captain America can defuse a bomb, infiltrate a den of arms dealers, disarm a squadron of HYDRA forces. It’s plenty of time, child’s play--anyone could do it.

And yet, fifteen minutes later, Steve is standing at the directed address, home to a clapboard apartment building at the top of a hill, with his lower lip between his teeth and not a single explanation in hand. He watches, from his vantage point, as a crowd of people climbs towards him: Scott’s ex-wife, Maggie, and her husband, who Steve’s only seen from a distance; Scott’s friend Luis, carrying one of those reusable six-bottle wine bags full of champagne; and leading the pack, Scott himself, wearing a suit and carrying Cassie on his shoulders. They’re all smiling and laughing, but none moreso than Scott, who practically levitates with happiness. “It’s Captain America!” Scott shouts, jostling Cassie until she jumps down and runs ahead.

“Are you here for the party?” she asks, skipping up the steps to the building without really waiting for an answer.

“Party?” _Party?_ In this stupid Pant-Man shirt he’d worn specifically to make Scott laugh, while Scott’s charcoal suit flaps perfectly in the breeze? “What’s, uh. What’s the occasion?”

“We’re a big family again!” Cassie announces, unlocking the door and bounding up the stairs. Everyone else laughs, but fondly, happily. “My boy Scotty just got his own place, _and_ joint custody,” Luis elaborates, which explains everything, really: the clothes and the smiles, the waves of joy rolling off Scott like a physical force, and also why Steve’s body is suddenly wrapped around Scott in a hug that he _knows_ is crushing and yet can’t seem to stop.

“Congratulations,” he almost yells.

“ _Ngh_ ,” Scott replies into Steve’s shoulder. “Thanks,” he clarifies when Steve finally releases him enough to set him back on the ground, if not to move entirely out of his space. Nobody, he thinks, would blame him for wanting to stay close to the glow of Scott’s smile. “I--it’s, yeah--” He looks off and bites his lip, as if that’s going to contain the emotion clearly pushing at every one of his seams. “It’s _good_ , you know?”

“It’s _great_ ,” Steve says with the sort of sincerity that usually makes Natasha wince, but Scott hugs him again, squeezing tight. “You deserve it,” he adds, quiet enough for no one else to hear.

“Don’t make me cry in front of my ex-wife for the second time today,” Scott says, nose scrunching. “Also, on an unrelated note that’s definitely not a subject change, what’s the deal with the voicemails?” He grins, a flash of dazzling light. “I hope you bought me one of those drawings, by the way. I’m a pretty prestigious collector of Ant-man memorabilia and art. One might say, the biggest collector in the Bay Area. Or any area, probably.”

Oh god, _oh god._ “You _listened_?” Steve chokes.

“Of course,” Scott says, as if this shouldn’t come as a surprise. “I always want to listen to you. You’ve got a really nice voice, you know.” He freezes, winces, tacks on an awkward smile. “Like, for audiobooks. Or a podcast! Not for just, like, talking to me.”

The facts are these: Scott’s tie is pulled loose, slightly askew, and the top button of his shirt is undone. His hair’s a little longer now, soft and ruffled in the wind. There has never been a green as verdant and pure as his eyes in this sunlight. And it’s Tuesday, it’s Tuesday, it’s Tuesday.

“I went to the bakery today to tell you,” Steve says, not missing the involuntary tightening of Scott’s hand on his arm. “To see you, I mean. And you weren’t there, so I called you. But the message was bad, so then I called you again. And then I temporarily lost my mind, I guess. Because--”

“To tell me what?” Scott asks. His hand is still on Steve’s arm and his eyes crinkle when he smiles--or, as he _continues_ to smile, really; he hasn't stopped yet.

“I don’t know,” Steve admits. “I hadn’t gotten that far, but it was going to end like this,” and he leans down to carefully, hopefully, wonderfully press his lips to Scott’s, to catch the surprise with his mouth, to kiss Scott over and over and over as if he’ll forget how it feels if he stops.

“That’s a pretty good ending,” Scott says, unable to curb his grin into something more wry. “You probably could lead with that, actually. Good first draft, though; let’s workshop after the party.”

“Oh,” Steve says, remembering all at once their gaping audience, including Cassie plastered to an upstairs window. “Oh, no, I couldn’t intrude--”

“You’re never an intrusion,” Scott assures him, hand sliding around his. “You know what’s an intrusion? Hank’s gonna show up in ten minutes with some new hare-brained scheme and I’m going to have to chase him out with a broom. _That’s_ an intrusion! You, no. You’re always welcome.” 

He smiles, soft and bright as the sunlight around them as he brings Steve to meet his family, friends, and whatever else Tuesday still holds.


End file.
